JOIN USThe Sialkot Saga
Ashwin Sanghi
Westland
2016, pp 582, Rs 350
Arvind Bagadia is the son of a Marwari businessman in Calcutta. Arbaaz Sheikh works in the dockyards of Mumbai. While Arvind grows up to be a successful businessman, Arbaaz ends up being an influential underworld thug-turned-politician.
They are as different as chalk and cheese. And yet, very similar. They have a shared past that both of them are unaware of. And, while Arbaaz is a known gangster, Arvind’s business actually borders on white-collar crime. So begins Ashwin Sanghi’s The Sialkot Saga, fourth after The Rozabal Line, Chanakya’s Chant and The Krishna Key.
Like they say, it really is a small world. For, Arvind and Arbaaz’s paths cross, and how? They try to outdo each other in business, cheat each other at every conceivable opportunity, and one fine day even find their children wedded to each other, much against their wishes. And, of course, they meet a similar end.
The story begins in Sialkot, Pakistan, around the time of Partition, in a train that chugs into the Amritsar railway station. The scene is heartrending. There are dead bodies everywhere. There doesn’t seem to be any survivors, except for two small boys, miraculously discovered among the heaps of dead bodies.
The story then moves back and forth, from post-Independence India to ancient India, going back to the time of great Indian emperors like Ashoka, Samudragupta, Harsha and Krishnadevaraya. And we have episodes around Emergency, Jana Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, poetry-loving Arvind running into Atal Behari Vajpayee, Rajiv Gandhi flying an Indian Airlines plane, US President Bill Clinton addressing a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament, Steve Jobs searching for his guru, and so on.
Wondering what the connection between ancient India and post-Independence India is? Well, here it is: the ancient emperors were all possessors of an ancient manuscript that held the key to the secret of immortality, which a Bhutanese company owned by Arvind’s son’s roommate at Stanford wants to unravel. Curiously, Arvind and Arbaaz are the shareholders of this company.
Most part of this bulky book is devoted to exploring the lives of Arvind and Arbaaz, through the many events that happened in post-Independence India. Name any major event, the book has a mention of it, and it touches the lives of Arvind and Arbaaz in some way. For instance, the 9/11 World Trade Center attack, the Godhra train burning incident, the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks... So we have a perfect blend of fact and fiction, business and politics, catching the reader unawares. Though the shifts between the past and the present seem smooth, the reader is left wondering, for most part of the book, what the purpose of it all is, till they reach the end-pages of the book.
A master storyteller that he is, and a businessman himself, Ashwin Sanghi has definitely related an interesting business story in the Indian context. And the amount of research that has gone into each and every aspect of the story is commendable, to say the least. The pace too is racy. However, short visits to ancient India, once every decade in the timeline of the story, somehow seems to slacken the pace, making the read tedious.
Also, being a keen follower of Bollywood, I was a tad disappointed with the book as I could see shades of several Hindi blockbusters in it. In fact, the story proceeds on predictable lines, and after a few chapters into it, you will know how it will probably end. Remember The Rozabal Line, which still sends chills down readers’ spines? Chanakya’s Chant and The Krishna Key too were riveting reads.
Somehow, The Sialkot Saga doesn’t seem to work the same magic. To add to the readers’ woes, the editing, in several places, leaves a lot to be desired, as also the length of the book. If only the book was thinner by a few hundred pages...